SW: The Old Republic Part 3

[Humanoid]

One can only hope that TOR delays DA3 indefinitely then.

 

That, and I've also never bought a Blizzard game without the words "World of Warcraft" on the box - never before, and as far as I can see from their roadmap, will never in the future.

[Bokishi]

Yeah I unsubscribed, even freedon nadd is empty now. This game is deader than dead

Edited May 9, 2012 by Bokishi

[Hurlshort]

Are you guys all capped out level-wise? I've been playing on two different servers, and the pops have been solid going through the first 1-30 levels. I'm rarely alone in an area. I think you just have a lot of people playing multiple characters, which means less folks at the cap trolling for end game content.

[Raithe]

No, I've got my SI capped out, my smuggler just hit 50 but still has class and world quests to wrap up on Corellia. I still haven't hit Illium with either of them. Just popping off some of the assorted bonus missions and wotnot. Hoth, Voss, Corellia...

 

I've got a Jedi Knight in the low 30's on Alderaan. I just spent a chunk of the evening running my Bounty Hunter through Dromund Kaas and there was a planetary population of around 30-45, the majority of which were in the 11-17 range.

 

And I've got a Sith Marauder who's 11th still lurking on the Imperial Fleet...

 

From what I've seen, I have to say that Corellian Run seems to be pretty balanced in population Republic / Imperial wise.

 

Heh, now that you can email between your characters without concern for Republic/Imperial wise.. I have to say it's being a little surreal how my smuggler say is picking up materials and level 5 c ompanion gifts, then sending them to the Imp characters who craft stuff then can be used to send those finished products to the Republic side.. (bad roleplaying I know..but hey..it's one of those funky things).

 

That and my Guild is established on both sides so there's that sort of trade between the guild banks.

[Humanoid]

Given you can formally in-game set your Sith Lord to be married to your Jedi Master, I don't think the mail thing (which I only found out about a week ago) is too big a leap. Especially true of the story-wise non-affiliated classes - don't think there'd be anything unusual at all about free association between smugglers and bounty hunters for example. Which returns the point for me that I'd personally like to see that non-faction affiliation be a real option in the game, it's a game mechanic with no real value when used as it currently is.

[Bos_hybrid]

Michael Pachter thinks SWTOR is pulling talent away from Dragon Age 3, therefor postponing the release to 2014.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-mmo-pulling-talent-away-from-dragon-age-team

Meanwhile, Dave Gaider is losing all his carefully planted hair and becomes fat and sad again.

 

With the news coming from bioware forums about DA3, I don't care.

[Hurlshort]

DA2 is actually the worst Bioware game I've ever played, so it's hard to muster much sympathy here.

[Hassat Hunter]

From a story perspective, the heroics are pretty meh. From a gameplay perspective I kinda like them. The fights are tougher, so you have to think and cooperate a little, making them a nice break. But they are not needed to do in any way shape or form.

They are kinda annoying singleplayer-heavy completionists like me though... grrr...

Don't want to miss out a side-quest and story and dialogue combined to that just because of failure to spam the talking screen. Or because the team completed the mission and for some reason I am still considered on it, and suddenly I would have to re-do it all over again even when I found a team...

 

Still waiting for them to make it free-to-play. Can't take long now...

Also, yeah, can't see myself getting warm to the prospect of Dragon Age 3. Sorry BioWare.

[Hurlshort]

My guess is TOR will take at least two years before it enters a free to play stage. You might get an amalgamate system earlier, like free starter worlds or something similar.

[Raithe]

Now that I've got 5 characters, I'm getting into the crafting system.. Although I seem to have evolved it where several characters don't have any crafting skills, just gathering/mission ones.. and they all pump resources around each other...

[Malcador]

Grinding away for epic recipes ?

[Raithe]

Grinding away for epic recipes ?

 

Actually no. It's damn easy to get hold of all the grade 6 stuff.

The pain is getting the grade 2/3 stuff so I can create good stuff for my lower level characters... Go figure.

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, I've enjoyed the crafting system more now that I have a solid understanding of how they all work together. My first couple characters stumbled through it and eventually stopped progressing, but now my characters work together a but more naturally. It's fun to set aside stuff for my legacy characters too, and really the best way to keep all your orange gear up to level is to craft the mods.

[Malcador]

Is a free weekend coming up, well for anyone here keen on trying this out. Which at this point is probably no one, heh.

[Raithe]

I don't think you could really work the craft system that easily with just the one character and the 3 crew skills, no matter how you selected.

 

I mean, okay, Artifice/Archaeology/Treasure Hunting does a decent job.. but the others seem a bit more spread out.

Having multiple characters with a spread of crew skills and extra gathering skills makes things so much easier to work on.

[Hurlshort]

This game is completely designed around the idea that you need to focus on multiple characters. Independent storylines, unique companions, and the legacy system mean that if you only play one character, you are completely missing out on content. THat's why I was surprised so many people leveled one character and then quit.

[Malcador]

Probably tire of the non-class stuff. I suppose one could level without them and try to grind out PvP/Space - which might be even less fun, in the end.

[Raithe]

I know a few people who do class only, and just use heroics, pvp, space combat and flashpoints to keep levelling up.

[Guest Slinky]

This game is completely designed around the idea that you need to focus on multiple characters. Independent storylines, unique companions, and the legacy system mean that if you only play one character, you are completely missing out on content. THat's why I was surprised so many people leveled one character and then quit.

 

I wouldn't sign that. I find most of the single player content (story, characters, quests) as unimaginative poop. The sole reason why I still play the game is I found awesome guild to play with. Without it I would have ditched the game last february.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Slinky

[Hurlshort]

Huh, I really haven't found a storyline that didn't appeal to me in some way. But I'm a sucker for the Bioware pulp fiction machine, so that helps.

[Humanoid]

I have no problem with an MMO that encourages alts - but TOR doesn't really succeed at it beyond two (one of each faction) because of the linearity of the planet progression beyond the tutorial planet. Now granted, creating independent, parallel levelling paths would multiply the development effort required, but if they're insisting on this "levelling over endgame" design then it's sort of a necessary thing. One thing that happened to WoW after the last expansion was an explosion of all the launch zones and reconfiguring them such that they ended up with three, sometimes even four zones you could choose from at any given level.

 

Now this didn't do much for the veterans who had no reason to go back, but it's great incentive for the newer players to go again on a completely different trip around the gameworld.

 

 

 

re: Free weekends - they're mostly obsolete now that any subscriber can send out 25 week-long trials (previously limited to three).

[Hurlshort]

Eh, I'm on my 5th character. While there are a few quests I rush through because I've done them enough times, the unique character plots keep it pretty fresh. The trick for me is to alternate imp/republic characters. I also haven't taken one all the way to the cap.

 

Also I'm pleasantly surprised how often the dialogue changes with the quests available to all. My Mercenary elicits a very different reaction from quest givers than my Sith warrior.

[Spider]

Also, you don't have to do all the quests in every playthrough. Do different bonus series for different times through and a fair amount of content will vary.

[Humanoid]

It works if you go through alts fairly methodically I suppose, with weeks or even months between repeating the content. Thing is, over the last week - my sub ran out today incidentally - I'd been pretty much sampling every class after abandoning my "main" smuggler. That means repeating content in quick succession, and not having any time to build up rested XP - I find myself borderline underlevelled for a lot of content. Admittedly I also do zero group content, so no heroic quests - I get out of all the public chat channels as soon as I create a character.

 

Doing a full clear of Coruscant and Dromund Kass twice each in the space of a week does colour the perception a bit, sure. And yes, the minor dialogue changes depending on class are a pretty nice touch.

[Raithe]

Well I've managed to get my SI and Smuggler to 50 now.. although I haven't finished the Smuggler's storyline..and I still haven't travelled to Ilum yet..

 

I seem to be juggling time on my Bounty Hunter and Jedi Knight as well.. I do think that's one of the key approaches to not getting burnt out on the worlds. Alternate Imp/Rep styles...

 

My sister created her first Alt.. she's trying out a Sith Sorcerer after getting her Jedi Shadow up to late 30's.. So I had a Sith Warrior and we actually ran through Korriban and Dromund Kaas together which was an interesting experience (okay, technically we still haven't finished DK just yet..). It's interesting to note how the game picks up on you being in a group, and also had some references to us being the same group who did the Black Talon - The Imperial Agent who hands you that mission straight from Allo, Allo talks about it , and I can't recall him saying such when solo'ing it...